Fl's financial literacy standards for social studies classes up for public comment

By Leslie Postal

We'd bet money (and even our first born) these won't generate the interest of Common Core or evolution. But the Florida Department of Education still wants to hear the public's thoughts on proposed standards for financial literacy, guidelines for what students should learn so they can "make responsible and effective financial decisions."

The new financial literacy standards are to be embedded in existing social studies standards as part of the 1/2 credit economic course high school students must take. They are required thanks to a law the Florida Legislature passed last year.

The lessons are to cover earning, savings, budgeting, using credit, managing debt and financial investing, among others.

Sen. Dorothy Hukill, R-Port Orange, has proposed requiring an entire 1/2 credit course on financial literacy. She's filed a bill (SB 212) that would require high school students to take such a course starting with the student's who enter 9th grade this August.

That course also would cover topics such as banking, balancing a checkbook, filing taxes and applying for loans.

“These skill don’t come naturally and we must prepare our students to take charge of their personal economic well-being,” Hukill said in a statement.

Her bill will be heard in the coming legislative session.

The Florida Department of Education typically takes comments on new academic standards -- which serve as the blueprint on which schools base lessons. The controversial Common Core standards (for language arts and math) generated more than 19,000 comments, and new science standards (because they required the teaching of evolution, which also was fiercely controversial) generated more than 20,000.